Sweeney, Rutgers at odds over ‘hidden’ report release

Gerald Harvey, chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors, last August announced the membership of a university task force to “explore opportunities for Rutgers to become a more efficient and effective institution.”
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TRENTON – For the second time in eight months, top Rutgers officials are being questioned on why an internal report assembled by a university task force has not been released to the public.

In November, three weeks after multiple media outlets questioned why the Rutgers administration declined to publicly release a 264-page Hurricane Sandy report dated March 28, 2013, the university finally made available the findings of a report detailing Rutgers’ preparedness and response to the worst storm to hit New Jersey in decades.

On Monday, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, criticized university officials for their failure to publicly release what he labeled a “hidden” internal report that apparently details recommendations to improve the school’s governance system.

During a Senate Higher Education Committee hearing on a bill to increase the number of Rutgers Board of Governors, Sweeney took aim at Dorothy Cantor, chairwoman of the Rutgers Board of Trustees, and demanded that she voluntarily release the report to the state Legislature.

After initially saying “the study is still in progress” and members of the school’s governing boards “have not concluded all of the changes that we are going to make,” Cantor said she would have to confer with Gerald Harvey, chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors, before deciding whether to release a report that was intended to “explore opportunities for Rutgers to become a more efficient and effective institution.”

Harvey was at a funeral Monday, according to Cantor, and was not at the committee hearing.

“I’m asking you to forward it voluntarily since you’re not willing to show it to anyone, except for you and Mr. Harvey,” Sweeney said during a heated 10-minute exchange. “So we have 59 members of the trustees board and 13 or 15 members of the Board of Governors and only two have seen the report? And when did you get the draft report?”

Cantor said, “December.”

“So in six months, you’ve sat on a report and not shared it with anybody else,” Sweeney said. “I am telling you one way or the other I am going to get this report.”

Last August, Rutgers announced the membership of a joint task force charged with identifying areas of possible improvement in the university’s governance and appointed the Rev. M. William Howard Jr., pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Newark and former chair of the Rutgers Board of Governors, as the head of the committee. The news release said Harvey and Cantor instructed the task force to consider:

• best practices of governing boards at other institutions;

• best practices and the overall effectiveness of Rutgers’ governing boards;

• recommendations for improving the effectiveness of Rutgers’ boards;

• implementation plans for those recommendations.

“We have made clear to the members of the task force that they should be thoughtful, thorough and willing to rigorously examine long-held beliefs about Rutgers University’s history and traditions,” Cantor said at the time. “This is an appropriate time for a serious self-examination, with the input of all appropriate stakeholders, of how Rutgers should be governed in the decades to come. No one knows this better than members of our own community.”

The Aug. 1 statement said Harvey and Cantor asked the task force to present an initial report at the December meetings of the Board of Governors and board of trustees.

But while Cantor testified that members of Rutgers’ governing boards “have seen the elements,” she expressed reluctance Monday to unveil the report because, she said, “I think when a report is issued some people will expect that everything in that report will be adopted and will question why it isn’t.”

“We sought a series of recommendations, some of which would be adopted and others of which weren’t, and so that’s the caveat. That’s why I’m hesitant,” Cantor testified.

“It’s not a caveat,” Sweeney said. “Your school, this university, announced that it was going to examine its governance structure and that it was going to reform its governance structure in the embarrassment that happened over a period of time. And now you’re not willing to say that you would support ... the release of a structure. If it was developed by the university by the person that you selected to chair this committee, then why wouldn’t you adopt these recommendations if it’s been done within?”

Cantor corrected Sweeney’s statement that the task force was commissioned in response to the string of athletics scandals stemming from the men’s basketball player abuse controversy.

“It wasn’t in response to any particular scandal, as you suggest, but rather because we thought that it would be an indication of good governance,” Cantor said.

After he flippantly labeled it “just a coincidence” that the task force was commissioned “during the scandal,” Sweeney rebuked the Rutgers administration for its lack of transparency.

“Honestly, all kidding (aside) what’s upsetting is an internal report was done on the governance structure, it was not shared with anyone else except the two chairs,” Sweeney said. “We’re proud of Rutgers. It is our school. Nationally, everyone thinks it’s an Ivy League school.

“But what the embarrassment here is that there was a report done, and only two people have seen it for six months, and you say, ‘that’s OK.’ ”

Sweeney said he would file an Open Public Records Act request to obtain the report if Rutgers officials further declined to release it.

Rutgers officials on Tuesday didn’t respond to an OPRA request submitted by MyCentralJersey.com on Monday to obtain the report through the university’s custodian of records department.